sexual purity, abstinence, armed and virtuous

Glad you found us! This site has one objective: to help you win the spiritual battle for purity, in every sense of the word. Society encourages us to throw away our virtue; the message sent out by the media is: "everyone's doing it!" We are here to prove that statement wrong! Come in, read some encouraging testimonies, chat with others who strive to remain pure, and reaffirm your belief that purity, sexual and otherwise, is not only possible, but totally worth it!

Testimonies

Come in and be encouraged!

This page contains testimonies of real people and their real struggles to remain sexually pure, written in their own words. You will discover that it was a challenge for all of them to stay pure, no matter how long ago they were teenagers. They stand as proof that abstinence until marriage is possible! You will also read stories of people who made mistakes and faced painful consequences, but God forgave their sin and restored their lives. May these personal experiences strengthen you in your battle for sexual purity. Due to the sensitive nature of topics discussed, names have been changed to protect the forgiven.

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My name is Carrie, and I think my story of purity is a unique one. My husband is the first man I ever considered a boyfriend. We were high school sweethearts. Early in high school, on a youth retreat, I made a "True Love Waits" commitment to remain pure until I was married. I didn't date much at all early in high school because I lived in a small town, and most of the guys seemed more like brothers to me than dating material. But the summer before my junior year, when I wasn’t even looking, I met Adam. If you had asked me then, I’d have told you we’d never be more than friends. To make a relationship more unlikely, he lived several hours away from me. Little did I know what God had in store for me.

It started as a totally casual relationship. He became a friend with an unbiased ear that I could talk to when I didn't want to talk to people who already knew the whole story (you know...teenage drama!). Though we weren’t dating, I found myself anxiously waiting until the next time we talked. These were the days before free long distance or unlimited cell phone minutes, so we used email as our primary method of talking.

Then, came summer, and I was selected to be in a week long leadership camp. I had no idea what a turning point in my life this week would be! In my head, I was looking forward to a great experience, but in hind-sight, it was life-changing! The camp was near enough to Adam’s hometown that he could drive up for our closing ceremonies. We finally got to spend some time with each other face to face. We had the opportunity to sit outside on a park bench and talk for a couple of hours. When it was time to go, he gave me a very sweet hug, and I went to my room and cried my eyes out! I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever see him again. I knew then I was crazy about him and wanted to be more than friends! Later this same week, I was recruited by a professor from a university, far away from home. When I returned from camp, I sure had a lot to think about.

Despite the cost, emails from him turned into phone calls. We also begin to send letters back and forth through the mail. We didn't know how it would all materialize, but we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend. At this point, we hadn’t told our parents about this, but eventually we braved letting them know, and I think at first everyone was hesitant (and probably thought we were crazy) but slowly began to trust us. After all, what do two juniors in high school know about a long distance relationship?

Now, back to that college thing. This "new" university where I was suddenly interested in going turned out to be in the same town where some of his family lived and where he was planning to go to college. That wasn't really by our orchestration; it was totally God working without us figuring it all out for a while. During my senior year, I went to a preview weekend and our families were able to meet for the first time. Later, during my senior year, he also flew down to my hometown and went to my senior prom with me. What a sweet thing to do!!! By the end of our senior year, we had both decided for sure that we would be going to college together.

So far, as you can tell, purity wasn't that big of an issue for us because we rarely saw each other, and when we did, it was always around other people. Even in college, I'd be in the dorms, and he was going to live with his family. But, our relationship totally changed once we were actually able to spend some face time together, on a regular basis.

A lot of our purity was guarded by our circumstances. I lived in a girls dorm at a Christian school, and visiting hours were limited. Boys could be in our rooms for only 3 hours on Sunday afternoon, our doors had to be open, we could only sit in the same bed, and there was supposed to be space between us. I have to admit that I'm a rule follower, so my dorm room was certainly not a situation of struggle for us. And since he lived with his family, there wasn't a lot of temptation there, either. We would sit on a couch in his room, but the door always open, and someone would usually come check on us regularly.

Had we confined ourselves to those, and only those physical areas to spend time together, we would've been fine, but like most couples, we wanted some time to be alone. We found that being in either of our cars alone seemed to be our weakest place. Remember, I had made a commitment that I was not going to have sex with anyone who was not my husband, but looking back on it, a boundary should have been more clearly defined. I had Christian friends in college who said, "I know this is the man I'm going to marry, so I don't see anything wrong with having sex with him now." Luckily, I wasn't sucked into that mentality.

At Christmas of my sophomore year, Adam moved into his own apartment. He got a "real job" and things changed quickly. We were spending a lot more time alone at his place. We never had sex, but I can't say it wasn't tempting sometimes, or that we never crossed a few lines we shouldn't have. In April of that same year, he proposed and we were engaged! It was such a special, but busy time! Our wedding was in my hometown, several hours away, and we made a lot of trips home that were packed full of wedding planning.

As the date neared, we were so excited about getting away on our honeymoon! Though we struggled, we made a commitment to each other and to God, and we waited. The first man I ever kissed is still the man that I kiss goodnight, eight years after our beautiful wedding day. We struggled at times, but we made it, and you can too! God gave us the strength, and he will give you strength too, even if you've messed up. His mercies are made new every morning.

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My name is Mei. During my childhood days, I was faced with some life altering situations in my family that I feel ultimately led me to seek love elsewhere at an early age. I lost my virginity at 13 yrs. old. Wow, that is still so hard to say. I was just a kid. I felt lots of peer pressure that led me to that decision. I had no self-respect, very low self-esteem, self-confidence and didn't know much about self-control. Little did I know that I was looking for Jesus to fill the void inside of me that left me feeling so alone and empty. I know today that His love exceeds the despair that I felt inside so many years ago.

I proceeded to become a promiscuous teenager, until I found what I thought was the guy of my dreams. Little did I know then, he was not the person that he said he was and when our relationship ended over an STD that he had given me, my world came crashing down. I can't express the shame I felt going through such an embarrassing situation. This STD led me to some abnormal tests which revealed the development of pre-cancerous cells. I had to have a procedure done to freeze and remove these cells, which was extremely painful.

My life then carried on with thoughts of worthlessness and suicide. I continued searching for someone to love me. My perception of love was that it came through sex alone. I learned very quickly that these "great" guys that promised me the world and their love only wanted one thing. At this point, I couldn’t tell you the meaning of self-esteem and self-respect. I began drinking to hide the hurt and shame I felt.

I married a guy in my early 20's. We were married for a year and then divorced. He was an alcoholic and abusive to me. One day, I woke up and decided that I couldn't live like this forever. My immoral actions had led me to this low point. I settled for the first guy that would marry me. I just wanted that love void filled, I strived on my own and it led me down the road to nowhere.

I carried around guilt and condemnation with me for so long, that only God could open my eyes. He revealed to me that I daily thought about my past mistakes. It was literally a daily routine for me. For 16 long years I tortured myself over the choices I’d made and for the person I had become. It was after that revelation, during a ladies meeting at our church, that the guilt and condemnation was broken and I felt the heaviness leave my body and a pureness once again instilled in me. Oh the relief I finally felt! I felt like a new person! It was then I realized the turmoil and anguish that sin can cause a person. God didn't create us to carry such a burden.

I had a girl once tell me, "well you turned out ok", trying to make an excuse to live such a lifestyle. The truth is, she didn't walk in my footsteps and had no idea what I went through all of those years mentally, physically and emotionally to get to be "ok". I might have looked "ok" on the outside but it was truly a living hell on the inside and it took a very long time to renew my mind through Christ. It was an extensive journey that no one should ever have to go through. Do I regret my mistakes? I wish I could change some of them yes, but they also have made me into the person that I am today. Romans 8:28 says that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

After my divorce, I met and married the man that I will spend the rest of my life with. He is my knight in shining armor! Shortly after we met, we found Christ and gave our lives to Him. God has changed our lives forever, together. Through Christ and my husband, I now have high self-esteem, self-worth and self-confidence. Jesus is my refuge! He is my redeemer and my Savior! He has forgiven me and cleansed me of all unrighteousness! He loves me and has filled that love void in my life. I will forever be grateful to my God who has delivered me and given me a purpose, His purpose, for me! What the enemy once used to destroy me, my God turned around for my good. I can now try and help others from making the same mistakes. Through my husband I have found my "happily ever after", but through Jesus, I have found my "happily forever after."

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Hi. My name is Renee. My husband, Scott, and I dated a year, were engaged a year longer, and have now been married almost 13 years. By the world’s standards, my husband and I waited until we were married to have sex. However, based on God’s standards of purity, we failed pretty miserably. I knew that God wanted me to remain pure, and I had great intentions, but I lacked the practical knowledge of how to ensure that purity. My hope for you as you read this testimony is that you will look at our failings and our great God and see how you can trust him to give you His view about yourself and your purity.

In my high school days, there were many ways that God protected me. I was painfully shy, had overprotective parents, and lived thirty miles away from the school I attended. My mother worked at the high school, and while I was never in any kind of trouble, she would have known if I had been. At the time, these things seemed like burdens, but God used them for my good. I was fortunate to have two best friends who were believers who didn’t drink and planned to wait for marriage for sex. We were extremely silly girls who were able to have fun together without the physical and emotional drama sex before marriage can bring.

I had numerous crushes on guys that I sat nearby in classes over the years. I could get to know them without having to actually talk to them much, I could moon over them, but I was safely distant from any actual relationship or temptation. The problem with that was that I was self-conscious and felt like something was wrong with me because I didn’t have a boyfriend. While I wanted to follow God’s rules about waiting for marriage, I had no sense of who I was in Him. I didn’t want to wait because I understood the value He placed on me and the gift that sharing my life with someone would be, but because it was the “right” thing to do.

In time, God grew me. I became more confident in the person that He had created me to be. By the time I entered college, I was excited to be going out on my own, and for the first time, I wasn’t even interested in having a boyfriend. That is when God put my husband in my life. I look back and think of how God protected me from getting involved in other relationships by putting him into my life right then. I was naïve and allowed myself to be in situations early in our relationship that could have ended unfortunately if they had been with someone else. Scott was a thoroughly trustworthy fellow, and from almost the beginning, we knew that God was putting us together. Scott had been a Christian for a few years, and though I had made a profession of faith at 9, my relationship with the Lord would really start to grow through my college and early married years. We were surrounded by godly friends and seeking God together from the start of our relationship.

It was during this time that we attended a Bible study together, and one of the topics was about setting sexual boundaries. Scott and I were already very openly affectionate with each other. We both held the same views on waiting for sex until marriage, and I think that gave us more of a feeling of freedom about everything else. We knew that intercourse was the boundary which we didn’t want to cross, and all of the little things the study talked about seemed so completely innocent. I missed the point of the study completely. We should have chosen a clear and modest line, well before intercourse to hold ourselves accountable to.

We also should have drawn boundaries about when and how we saw each other. It was my first time away from home. I could stay up late, come and go as I pleased, and spend my time in any way that I chose. Scott and I spent countless hours together, sometimes with friends and roommates, sometimes alone. Out and about, we ate together, went to church together, and watched movies together. In our dorms, we did homework, studied our Bibles, watched tv, all atop the only real place to sit, our beds. Mostly, we spent our time talking. Even after our dorm’s visiting hours, we would spend long nights talking together in the car learning everything we could about each other. I had never been able to talk to someone so easily about any and everything. It didn’t take long for us to start talking about if we get married, and then when we get married. But, these long days and nights alone together, with increasingly deeper feelings for one another caused us to speed past lines that I truly had never even considered crossing until I already had.

In my infatuation and pride, it took a while for me to listen to the Holy Spirit’s conviction about the ways that I had overstepped God’s view of sexual purity. I stubbornly said to myself, Well, we are waiting until we are married to have sex. I was justifying my actions, narrowing my definition of sex from what God intended it to be. Whatever the world might say, we had blatantly, obviously crossed into territory that God considered sex. Eventually, I got it, and I confessed and repented, and Scott and I drew stricter lines about what we would and would not do. At this point, engaged and getting ready for marriage, backing up on intimacy was a very hard thing to do, and we struggled during this time, sometimes being more successful than others. We still failed to put into place practices that would have helped us keep these newly made boundaries intact. I look back on that time with great fondness, but it is the long talks, the falling in love, the getting to know the person who is my husband that is what I love about that time. All of those moments, even the most private, personal conversations could have taken place as we walked together in a public park, as we sat together in a secluded corner of a restaurant, or stood on the footbridge watching ducks behind our dorm, and we wouldn’t have put ourselves in a position to sin.

My husband and I narrowed our view of sex from God’s, putting far too much weight on intercourse. We had good intentions, but lacked the safeguards needed to insure that we entered our marriage completely pure. This put too much pressure on that one aspect of our sexual relationship once we were married, and contributed to sex, which is a gift from God, being a difficult issue for us for several years. However, God’s grace and forgiveness are complete, and once I allowed him to make the spiritual changes He wanted to make in my life, he restored every aspect of my marriage to what He planned for it to be physically and emotionally. My hope is that you will be encouraged by my story to strive for God’s standards of purity, to put proper guards up, and to trust in God’s power and mercy to overcome any problems you are facing. He promises that when you obey Him in this area of your life, He will bless you and your future spouse abundantly.

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My name is Heather. God blessed me with a Christian family that taught me to value sexual purity, but I had to make the decision for myself to remain a virgin until, if ever, I married. As my sisters fell in love and married, I remained single. I had Christian friends who began to have sex before marriage. Most of my dating experience came after college, during my early twenties as a single professional living alone. There was ample opportunity for me to have sex unknown to my family or church. Some of the Christian men I dated wanted a more physical relationship than I would allow, and they might have wanted to have sex. But I had decided that I wanted no regrets sexually or romantically. I chose to guard my heart as well as my body. I knew that even if I never married, I would regret having given away my virginity or my love to someone who didn’t love me enough to be my husband. So I dated carefully.

Then when I wasn’t expecting it, God introduced me to Mark. I knew right away that he was special, and I thought to myself, I could marry this man. Not only was I attracted to him physically and personality-wise; I was impressed also with his integrity. He treated me with great respect (and with enough attention to make it clear that he was attracted to me). He talked with me about his past relationships and about his relationship with God. I quickly came to trust and admire him more than any other man I had dated. And let me tell you, trust makes a man very attractive. I could tell he loved me by the way he treated me, and I knew my heart would be safe with him. So we agreed to marry. And then it became much more difficult to wait to have sex. I knew this man would be my husband, and I loved him as if he were my husband. But each of us knew the importance of abstinence before and faithfulness within marriage. It wasn’t easy, but with the help of God and supportive friends and family, I remained a virgin until I married the only man to whom I ever said “I love you.” I feel extraordinarily blessed in having none of the regrets that come with past sexual immorality or a previously broken heart. I told my husband that by waiting for sex until marriage, he had helped make my dreams come true. I know now that a fairy-tale wedding is not nearly as wonderful as a clear conscience and a loving, trusting spouse.

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Hi! My name is Cassie. As a girl from a Christian, church-going household, I never really felt the pressures of becoming sexually active during high school. I attended a small school where I knew early on that most of the guys I had gone to school with for 13 years weren’t my type, and I’m pretty sure they felt the same way about me.

College however was a much different story! Suddenly, I was in a totally different social atmosphere than I had ever experienced. I could be passing by my future husband, I would think to myself as I trudged across campus for the next class full of totally different people than the class before. Each class offered a whole new set of guys to survey!

Then it happened…an older guy asked me out. I immediately said yes not at all thinking that his intentions might not be as pure as mine. By the end of my first semester, I had made several friends (not all of which were Christians), and I had allowed myself to relax a bit in my spiritual walk with God. Big mistake! I found that I was letting myself get away with things I had never done before…watching filthy movies, listening to nasty music…all because that’s what this guy was doing. I knew it was wrong, but I was just trying to go with the flow so this guy (who by the way always wanted to talk about sex) would continue to like me. By the grace of God, things did not work out, and we went our separate ways a few months later.

Having learned my lesson and gotten my head back on straight, I was not looking for another relationship. So, of course, that’s when God decided to introduce me to my future husband, James. He was such a gentleman and treated me like no other guy had before. We hit it off instantly, and after a few months, it was becoming apparent to both of us that marriage could be in our future.

You may think that it got easier to push sexual desires and pressures out of my mind after I found “the one.” Wrong! I heard a bible study teacher say once that when a woman gives away her heart, the rest of her is sure to follow. Well, I knew that I was going to spend the rest of my life with James, and I had definitely given him my heart. So, it actually became harder for me to fight the desire to give myself completely to him, especially after we had been dating for 3 years. Don’t get me wrong…the desire to give yourself completely to your soul mate is a good one…as long as you don’t act on it until marriage!

Fortunately, James is a man of God and had also been saving himself for marriage. Though we struggled some with trying not to let our relationship get too physical, we did in fact wait until marriage to have sex. I am so glad to know that James is completely mine, and I am completely his. A sexual relationship between a husband and wife who have remained pure for one another is something special that no one else can be a part of.

“Why wait if you knew he was the one?” you might ask. I believe that God has honored mine and James’s decisions to stay pure until marriage. Jumping the gun on sex would have broken each of our promises to God, and I feel it would have left us both feeling guilty and weakened our relationships with God and each other. Our relationship is strong, and we have been married now for three years. Stay strong and don’t give your heart to just anyone! Sexual purity may not always be easy or popular, but it is so worth it!

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Hi, I’m Mike. When I was in high school, I began having sex with my girlfriend. We were both Christians and we knew it was wrong, but we justified it to ourselves. We said that we loved each other and we thought it would bring us closer together. We even thought we’d eventually get married. That all changed when she got pregnant. She and her parents, even though they were Christian, decided that she was going to have an abortion. I knew about it but I didn’t do anything to stop it, even though I knew that I should. I know God has forgiven me, but I still have to live with my own child’s death on my conscience. She broke up with me not long after that.

My first wife had been sexually promiscuous before we met and was a recent convert to Christianity. That marriage ended after five years because of infidelity on her part. She left me, quit the church, and rejected all attempts at reconciliation. Looking back on the early days of our relationship, there were warning signs that I missed. She had settled herself into a pattern of promiscuity in her teenage years that ultimately she was not able to break.

When I met the woman whom I am now proud to call my wife, Michelle, I had to tell her about all these things in my past. It took courage, but I couldn’t break her trust by being anything less than totally honest with her. Now, I don’t mean that I told her explicit details of every encounter, but I owed it to her to be able to make choices about me with all the information, with full knowledge of my past sins. She was gracious enough to understand and forgive me. For her part, she didn’t have to tell me anything embarrassing or shameful because there was nothing to tell. She was a virgin in heart and body. That made me respect her very much, and made her even more attractive to me than she already was!

Michelle and I did not have sex until our wedding night. With my first wife, I was always worried that she might cheat on me because I knew how she had acted in the past. With Michelle, I know she’ll never be unfaithful to me. How could she have sex with another man when she wouldn’t even have sex with me, her husband, before marriage?

Comparison is another inevitable consequence of premarital sex. Sex is very different with different partners. You don’t want to put yourself in the position of comparing your spouse sexually with some ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. It’s difficult for me to avoid comparing Michelle to my previous sexual partners in my mind. She doesn’t have that problem. Sex is all about learning how to please each other. Michelle is able to focus more completely on that learning process in a way that I am not, because I have the memory of other partners.

Take it from someone who has tried it both ways: it’s much better to wait until marriage to have sex. You save yourself a world of heartache, suffering, and shame. In return you gain respect, honor, an unshakable trust, and a closeness that’s not hindered by past sins.

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(Sarah, age 26)

Your website is wonderful! I think it is definitely a needed ministry for young girls. It is important for them to realize that sexual purity is so valuable, and that it is so much more than just not having sex. That's something I had to learn the hard way.

I went the majority of my high school years with no boyfriends or dates, so by the time I got to college, my self-esteem was pretty low. I was extremely innocent, and I tried very hard to fit in with the members of my university band, and in my second semester, with my fraternity. I allowed them to explain things that I didn't understand and gradually became desensitized to some of the jokes I heard. When one of the frat. brothers started showing an interest in me, I was ecstatic and we started dating. He was my first kiss.

Before we dated, I really didn't know that there was anything between kissing and sex, but this guy gradually pushed my boundaries. It is by God's grace alone that I am still a virgin, but we definitely crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed. My first clue when we dated should have been that I had to drag him to church with me, but at the time, I was blinded by the fact that a guy was actually interested in me and said he "loved" me. When he broke up with me, my heart was broken, but the shame I felt was even worse.

God healed and forgave me, though. He used that experience in my life and showed me that when my heart is in His hands, no one can break it. It has been hard to watch so many of my friends from high school and college get married and have children, but I am finally in a place where I am content with who I am in Him, and I know that when He is ready, He will bring the man He has for me into the picture. Until then, I have made a commitment to remain pure, and I have decided that I want my next kiss to be with my future husband on our wedding day.

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My name is Alyssa Daneise and this is my story…

I was raised in pure ignorance of sex. Anything I knew about the technical stuff came from what I pieced together from what I’d heard, read, and seen on TV/movies. The only formal thing I remember being taught about sex was “DON’T!”because only bad people “do”, and that is a dangerous place to be! I had great parents who loved me, a brother and sisters who cared, and a wonderful church home, but nobody really talked about that kind of thing. So my idea of what God wanted was for me to “not”, and I committed myself to that.

Here’s the problem: I didn’t understand what all that meant. I new nothing about all the wonderful “do’s” there are in God. I had no idea who I was in Him. I had no clue of the plans He had for me, and I didn’t really fully understand what I was supposed to “not” do. So that is why I am writing this. Like April, I want you to be fully armed so that you can know what virtuous means and you can achieve it. No matter who you are!

I spent most of my Jr. High & High School years feeling frumpy. I didn’t like myself a whole lot. I was miserably shy. (You wouldn’t believe it now, but I was.) I dated very little. So when I liked a guy and he actually liked me, and I thought he was a “good” guy (didn’t talk about it, didn’t know how) I would get into a relationship and give my heart away, quickly. Along with this came some pretty intense physical affection. Well, when you commit to “don’t” and you get into physical relationships, then say, “Oh, no, not that!” You get dumped and hurt and feel less about yourself. This continued into college.

Then, God began to work on my heart and teach me more about how much He loved me. I found Jeremiah 29:11 and began to discover that God truly had a plan for ME!! It greatly changed how I felt about myself and how I served Him, but I still struggled with how guys perceived me. I wanted so badly to feel loved, needed, and wanted by a guy. So, I continued to be too physical in relationships. Still always remaining the “virgin”, yet losing pieces of me to these guys who were not ready, or not willing, to love me in the way God intended for me to be loved.

God continued to teach me, grow me and open doors, but I never let Him take full control of that aspect of my life. I am not sure how much of it was because I was unwilling or just didn’t quite understand how. I graduated from college and began my career. I was now a single 22 year old virgin whose pride in her virginity didn’t make her apartment less lonely every night! I wore my virginity as a badge, even though my heart knew I had been in wrong places, and that it was by God’s grace alone that I had gotten out of many of those situations with my virginity still intact. Too many times, I put my self in places where I could have been robbed. I tempted men in ways that now appall me! I did not surrender my full self to Him.

God was gracious to me and sent me a wonderful man at the age of 25- who was shocked that I “didn’t” and respected me for it. He was a new Christian who had been divorced. I know God put us together for so many reasons! I know my virginity was one aspect that drew him to me. Not just that I was, but that I had that kind of commitment. (He didn’t realize how much I was holding out on God. Giving your whole life to God was totally new to him!) Our courtship was short and intense! I have never loved, nor been loved by anyone the way I love my husband. I knew instantly that this was different. I had actually just about decided I was destined to be single forever (Isn’t that always when it happens?) and told the Lord that was okay. I was tired of wrong relationships and I only wanted what He had for me. I believe God was waiting for that response.

We are married and have two beautiful children. It has been since marrying and even more since having my children though, that I am truly realizing all that purity means. I am choosing to talk openly with my children, and anyone else who will listen, about all that God desires. There is so much more to giving your all to God than I understood as a teen and young adult. I have regrets and scars that I desire others not to have. Discover early what I came to know so much later: God has a wonderful plan for you, from the time you were in the womb! It is a wonderful plan and it involves every aspect of who you are! Commit all your ways to Him. Let Him make your paths straight, and joyful!!

About Me

My name is April M. Anderson, and I'm just a girl with a story. God laid a burden on my heart to pray for my husband when I was in the sixth grade. I prayed and waited for him for six years, dated him for three, and we've been married for 15 years. By God's grace, both my husband and I were virgins on our wedding day and we've been living out our "happily ever after" from that day on!